SWIMMING: Nic Brown has won bronze for Australia in the men's 100m butterfly on Day 3 of the Youth Olympic Games.
The medal is Brown’s second bronze of the Youth Olympic Games and Australia’s fourth medal in the pool so far.
After smashing his PB with a time of 53.18, Brown was over the moon.
“This whole experience has taught me to believe in myself, I never thought I could do this a few months ago,” The Western Australian said.
“I only made my first national finals last year in the fly and to come home with a bronze medal at the Youth Olympics I mean it’s incredible I can’t explain it.”
Despite losing to Zhuhao Li from China and Aleksandr Sadovnikov from Russia, the 18-year-old said he did what he set out to do.
“I had a set race plan going into the race not to waste too much energy on that first 50 and just to try and kick home from the turn and I think I did that pretty well I mean it’s a PB for me by 0.9 or something so I mean I’m stoked,” he said.
“It is always a great pleasure to put on the Australian tracksuit , I remember the first time I put my Australian gear on for the first time it’s just all the emotions going through that is just amazing and to compete for Australia it is just a dream come true.”
In the other medal events for the evening Australia were not as fortunate.
Medal hopeful Ami Matsuo from Sydney was one of the favourites heading into the final of the women’s 100m freestyle after winning her heat and semi yesterday but just did not keep up with the pace of the pool tonight, finishing fourth and just missing out on a medal.
Clocking a time of 54.75, 0.1 behind bronze medallist Yuhan Qiu from China, Matsuo was happy with her performance.
“There was only 0.04 off my PB and my goal was not to get a medal or anything, I just wanted to do my best and that was my best and I’m happy,” the 18-year-old said.
“I learnt a lot about race experience and trying to race my own race, I got a bit intimidated with that race with the other girls but I guess this wasn’t my main race, tomorrow is my main race (200m freestyle) so what I have to do now is switch off, concentrate for tomorrow and see what I can do.”
Amy Forrester from Queensland was also pipped at the post in the women’s 200m butterfly, swimming slower that her heat this morning with a time of 2:14.21, finishing in sixth place while Italy’s Ambra Esposito and America’s Hannah Moore shared gold alongside bronze medallist Africa Zamorano Sanz from Spain.
“I just stung out a lot more...but I tried my best and that’s all anyone can really ask for I guess,” the sixteen-year-old said.
“I learnt that you can’t really do a best time every race and you just have to put it past you and tomorrow is a new day and maybe I will go home and practice the things that I messed up in that race and then hopefully improve for next time.”
Finally for the medal events the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay team consisting of Kyle Chalmers, Nic Brown, Nic Groenewald and Grayson Bell came in fifth behind medallists Great Britain , Italy and Germany but managed to smash their heat time by two seconds and set some new individual PB’s with Grayson Bell from Queensland smashing his time out of the water with a 52.24.
“I’m so happy with that, that’s a pretty big PB after my two breaststroke swims were pretty average so I’m stunned with that,” 17-year-old Bell said.
“Hats off to the Great Brits, they did really well but...you’ve just got to try and focus on your swim as much as possible and just to do the best you can on the day so I think we all did that, I’m happy with the boys and I think they should be happy with themselves as well,” Groenewald from Victoria said.
In other events, Brianna Throssell from Western Australia put in another standout performance winning her semi final in the women’s 50m butterfly.
Qualifying third overall with a time of 26.82 not far behind Russia’s Rozaliya Nasretdinova and Slovenia’s Nastja Govejsk, the 18-year-old is not only chasing down another podium finish after already bagging three bronze earlier in the meet, but is also enjoying the whole learning experience.
“It feels really good,” she said.
“Each time is like one more experience, getting a couple more under belt and seeing how it goes is really good.”
South Australia’s Kyle Chalmers just missed out on the 50m freestyle final after finishing 11th overall despite bettering his heat swim by 0.22 seconds.
Now half way through the swimming competition of the Youth Olympic Games, the Australian swim team have contributed to four of Australia’s five medals so far.
The eight Aussie youth swimmers will jump back into the pool tomorrow at 1000 (1200 AEST) at the Olympic Sports Centre Natatorium in Nanjing.
Laura Judd
Olympics.com.au
@AusOlympicTeam
